History of the Lone Star Duals
Any history of the Lone Star Duals has to begin almost 10
years before the actual event was first hosted in Texas.
A group of motivated individuals from Arlington
was involved in the Texas Amateur Wrestling Association and pushing the AISD to
incorporate wrestling into the athletic curriculum. People like Nate Kempler,
Buddy Nelson, Rick Harris, Al and Rae Jean Biermann,
and Barry and Toni Boustead were asking the school board to implement a high
school wrestling program to accommodate the needs of grade school and junior
high wrestlers living in the Arlington
area. These efforts subsequently led to the adoption of the sport in the Arlington
Independent School District
and the creation of the Wrestling Association of Arlington. This association
was created to support wrestling in Arlington
and around the state of Texas and
worked with the TIWA (Texas Interscholastic Wrestling Association) in pushing
for the adoption of the sport by the UIL (University Interscholastic League)
for high schools throughout the state.
These efforts included the television broadcast of the early
regional championships (before there were districts). These are now the
district championships and the broadcasts continue today. Several of the
individuals in the group were also involved in running the Cotton Bowl Classic,
a huge TAWA wrestling tournament held around New Year’s eve.
Having served as the Tournament Director for the Cotton Bowl Classic for many
years and confident in our volunteer group, I felt that we would be able to
host a large high school event and hoped we might be able to encourage the
University of Oklahoma to come to Texas to wrestle a dual along side the high
school competition. After several years of asking, in 1997 Coach Jack Spates
called and said he would be able to bring the Sooners to the Metroplex to
wrestle in early 1998. He was bringing three other teams, Wisconsin,
Virginia, and Brown and the very
first college competition was held in Arlington
at Lamar High School.
The Lone Star Duals was a reality. We had a total of 4 colleges and 8 high
schools competing and the Hilton Arlington was a big help in making the event
successful.
Despite initially being nervous about the differences in
college rules and keeping riding time, everyone had a great time and the
competition was outstanding. The impact it had on the high school wrestlers and
coaches, many of whom had never seen college wrestling, made it apparent that
this was something worth continuing. The enthusiasm of Barry Davis, Head Coach
of the University of Wisconsin,
encouraged us and we decided to expand the event to 8 college teams for the
1999 Lone Star Duals. This was the year that the UIL finally sanctioned the
sport of wrestling in the state so there was a lot of excitement in Texas.
We were also told that Dallas would
be the site of the 2000 Olympic Team Trials in Freestyle and Greco Roman
Wrestling. What a great year! The additional four college teams were Cal State
Bakersfield, Wyoming, Oregon State,
and Northern Iowa. The high school competition swelled
to 20 teams.
In 2000, with the build-up to the Olympic Trials in June, we
welcomed three teams from Iowa. Northern
Iowa returned and Iowa
and Iowa State
also agreed to participate. Iowa Public Television also made the trip with
announcers Tim Johnson, Jim Gibbons, and the legendary Dan Gable. IPTV
televised three duals and the excitement was matched by the competition in the
dual between Iowa and Oklahoma.
An 11-10 victory by Doug Schwab over Michael Lightner
(both became National Champs!) was indicative of the intensity of the matches.
Also televised were Iowa vs. Oregon
State and Iowa
State vs. Boise
State. It was a great time and gave
Texas wrestlers an opportunity to
watch many of the the best wrestlers in the country.
We had also grown to 12 college teams. There was also great excitement because Texas
wrestler Brandon Slay was training for the Olympic Trials. At the end of the
competition, a spaghetti dinner was held with Coach Gable speaking and handing
out the awards – a highlight for all the high school wrestlers. It was also an
opportunity for Dan to see how competitive the girls had become since the state
sanctioned them as an independent sport!
2001 brought something very special, the return of Brandon
Slay as the Olympic Champion! The Olympic Trials were a success for Dallas
and, with Brandon winning; it could
not have gone any better for the Dallas 2012 Committee. His success at Sydney
spurred greater interest in Texas
wrestlers around the nation and gave every Texas
wrestler the belief that they could compete with anyone. What an opportunity
for the high school wrestlers at the Lone Star Duals to meet him and attend a
clinic he held the night before the competition. 16 university teams attended
in 2001 and the highlight was Cael Sanderson earning
his second Outstanding Wrestler Award by winning his 99th
consecutive match and breaking Dan Gable’s NCAA record! The entire competition
was halted for the only time ever, so that everyone in the Coliseum could watch
Cael make history. The tape of that match was donated
to Iowa Public Television and can be seen on their website (in the archives)
today.
2002 saw the Duals grow to 18 university teams. Oklahoma
State and Missouri
became the 4th and 5th Big 12 teams to attend the Hilton
Arlington Lone Star Duals. Also, in addition to the Hilton Arlington; Brute
came in as a sponsor lending even more credibility to the event. The high
school competition was now a 24-team boy’s tournament with the top 8 teams
returning on Saturday and competing on mats alongside the college duals. The
girls’ event was now set as an individual competition with 16 competitors to a
bracket.. The competition had become so intense that
two teams wrestled twice on Saturday and the difference in both matches was 1
point. Vinita, OK
beat Lawton, OK
38-37 in the morning and then 37-37 in the 3rd place match that
evening, winning by criteria! Brown Coach Dave Amato won his 300th
dual at this competition, a highlight of any career.
In 2003 the event grew to 19 college teams. Brother Martin
HS from New Orleans, LA
won the high school boy’s event for the 3rd time! Cornell
University mad a statement about
the quality of Ivy League wrestling and the increasing parity of teams
nationally, by beating both Nebraska
and Oklahoma.
This past year, 2004, we hosted 20 college teams. We also
saw the high school team with the national record for most state titles (Perry,
OK with 38), win the boys event, beating a
tough Bremen, Georgia
team. Texas State Dual and Team Champions, Martin HS, took 3rd. The
legendary Danny Hodge was on hand to present the awards, a special treat since
his grandson was on the Perry team. Another Ivy League school had both NCAA
Division I Outstanding wrestlers. The University
of Pennsylvania’s Matt Feats won
the upper division and National Champ Travis Lee won the lower division. NCAA
Division II National Champions, Central Oklahoma, beat
Division III National Champions Wartburg by 2 points in the continuation of a
great dual series.???pts
Expectations are very high for the 2005 competition, with 9
of the top 25 teams in the nation attending. All three service academies, Army,
Navy, and Air Force, will be participating, with both Army and Navy ranked
among the four polls (25 and 21 respectively).
Some outstanding team duals will be Nebraska
– Michigan, Oklahoma
– Purdue, Purdue – Cornell, and Oklahoma
– Cornell. Some of the individual match-ups to watch will be 133lb, #1 ranked
Travis Lee (Cornell) versus #2 Chris Fleeger
(Purdue), and 2003 NCAA 157# Champion Ryan Bertin (Michigan) versus 2004 NCAA
157# National Champ Matt Gentry (Stanford).